Who should be on your social media team? At least one person from every department…

The ‘social media ambassador‘ may be the public face of your social media presence – but building a team with someone from each department will make participation more effective.

[Feel free to download and use the full size version from Flickr]

This illustration was planned with Michael Hraba and drawn by the talented Carlo Tolentino – our new artist. Making digital communications simple is very important to me, and we look forward to sharing more illustrations like this.

Because new media marketing channels differ so widely, it is nearly impossible to do an apples-to-apples comparison on effectiveness. At best, we create a different set of performance metrics and success measurements for each platform.

That’s fine, but it makes high-level marketing strategy decisions difficult. What services and websites are worth your time?

To assist you with these decisions, evaluate Return On Objectives (ROO) instead of Return on Investment (ROI).

For example: if service is a top strategic focus for you, it is possible to quickly compare the diverse range of social networks – and see which ones are allowing you to serve guests the best.

What social media objectives are you measuring for?

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A list of suggested objectives, and tools to match these objectives to specific platforms, are now available in our Insider’s Circle membership site.

I was a little disappointed with last year’s ad:tech conference in Paris, but this year’s event in San Francisco was quite good. All the leading advertising technology companies were represented, and I enjoyed learning what they are working on.

Some highlights and thoughts from the sessions I attended:

> Why is social media a marketing function? We have traditionally designated the web, and now social media, as the primary responsibility of marketing, but to succeed online today, we need to abandon this thinking.

> When building your social media team, include person from every department: management, marketing, PR, product development, customer service, etc

> Social media is a feedback loop: before, during, after transaction. Engage at each point.

> Some ad agencies are now optimizing landing pages around ‘who’ you know, not ‘what’ you know. Including connections from networks like Facebook gives a personal connection to the company.

> Starbucks was used as a good example of listening to customer suggestions, and acting on them. Their contest to submit ideas for improvement generated 80,000 ideas, and they have implemented 200 so far. (That is 2 ideas, every week, for the past 2 years) Are you doing something similar?

> Tracking online reputation should not just be aggregating reviews. Use a tool that gives you insight into trends and patterns.

> ROI is difficult to compare across platforms. Instead, compare ROO – Return on Objectives.

> Social media is the richest focus group that ever existed

> Social ROI is from insights, not necessarily sales

> Segment your email list by personas (not purchase history)

> Don’t try to buy social media fans. Avoid the “campaign” mindset, and understand that forming the relationships for a great online community will take years.

I’ll expand on many of these concepts in the days to come…

More and more hotels are seeing Twitter provide actual sales, and as we move from “ain’t it cool” to power users, it’s time we had a toolbox to match.

Here are the best tools for anyone using Twitter…and then at the end are custom Twitter buttons we made just for you.

HootSuite

HootSuite

A “professional Twitter client,” HootSuite is a web-based tool with powerful publishing and monitoring features. The ability to manage multiple accounts simultaneously make this the tool of choice for many social media managers. The “future tweet” scheduling tool is something I use extensively because of my international audience in different time zones. Since HootSuite includes many of the features from the tools below, I use this tool exclusively for all my Twitter activity.

Read more…

Over the past few months, I’ve seen hotels creatively use Facebook to successfully attract new guests and connect with past ones. This has led me to recommend a new situational approach to using Facebook: what works for some hospitality companies may not work for others. It seems you must have clear goals for being on the site before you can succeed.

The Pros & Cons of using Facebook

Pros

• It can serve as a rich media sharing platform for collecting and distributing photos and video of special events at your hotel
• You can extend your page functionality through various applications
• It can serve as a good social media hub, sharing content from various sites around the web
• The new enhanced wall feature encourages interactivity and creates a sort of “lifestream” around your hotel
• Event promotion seems to be something that works very well – considering how people tend to use Facebook
• You can rally people around a cause
• Access to statistics has improved over the past few months, making it easier to track metrics

Cons

• Your potential guests may not be using it
• Your guests may not want to use it to interact with a hotel
• People may even get annoyed by receiving marketing messages from a hotel on Facebook

“I thought Beverly Hilton was an old girlfriend, but then realized I’d been friended by a hotel. #HiltonFail” @simmonet

But perhaps the most powerful argument I hear against using Facebook is that is doesn’t reach people in the decision making stage of the travel planning process. This is something you must consider carefully if you are starting a brand-new Internet marketing campaign with limited resources. You may get a higher return on investment by focusing on online reputation building and search marketing.

Should your hotel have a Facebook presence?

Here are some questions to ask yourself Read more…

Earlier, I defined guestsourcing as a way for hospitality companies to involve their customers in the promotional process. The rewards include:

• Having a wider range of media to work with
• Access to a broad content base that increases your search rankings
• Increased loyalty from your guests

Now, I’d like to get practical and show you how to take advantage of this concept.

It’s very important you approach this right. Michael pointed out in a recent comment:

It seems to be more genuine and effective when it isn’t forced. Beyond the effort involved, when you court users who are not familiar with social media and not quite sure how to review…it can look and feel awkward…from bad reviews, to “shill” looking reviews.

I agree completely: timing is everything.

The perfect timing

Over and over, I’ve observed the best time to ask for online participation is after you receive positive guest feedback in some form. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it works.

If you get nothing else out of this article…

The next time you receive positive feedback, ask the guest for some type of online contribution. This works like magic for getting reviews on TripAdvisor, but remember we’re discussing guestsourcing here – the art of getting media on the web.

Ask the guest if they would like to share some photos of what they liked about your hotel. Perhaps this will be on Flickr…or just attached to a TripAdvisor review. The important thing is getting the content online – where potential guests can see it.

Turn existing fans into online participants

Earlier this week I talked with a hotel that had a very strong offline fan base, but just recently began social media marketing. With just a little bit of promotion, these fans quickly started participating and submitting their own content. It’s especially important to leverage your existing reputation if you’re new to this.

Listen and reach out

Be aware when prominent bloggers and media producers are visiting your area. Roger Smith did that with Chris Brogan. You can do that by monitoring Twitter and other channels to see who is visiting your area.

Reach out to media producers!

From a marketing perspective, these are among your most valuable guests.

Create a contact point

Designate a social media contact person to provide help and access. Make it very easy for people to get in touch with them: by phone, email, Twitter, etc.

Guestsourcing Photos and Videos

Build a Flickr group to serve as a central collection point for photos: both for contributors and for viewers.

Showcase the best guest photos on your website, like Sunriver Resort. Reward creativity with attention.

Actively solicit new submissions on your site, and in your Flickr group.

Provide a standardized tag – yourhotelname – to make discovery easier.

With video, you may want to note what Omni Hotels is doing. As part of their Omni Flips for Summer package, guests are loaned a Flip Video camcorder for the duration of their stay. A “Summer Fun Counselor” helps guests process and upload their videos.

Encouraging blog reviews

There are many bloggers that exclusively write hotel reviews – either professionally or as a hobby. You want to treat your visiting bloggers like royalty, because they have the ability to sway online perceptions. (Which I say without bias, because I’m not a hotel review blogger…)

I recommend putting together a special blogger’s package. This can include:

• A hotel fact sheet (like you would use with the press)
• The background story on the hotel
• Interview access to the owner or general manager (as appropriate)
• High-resolution hotel photos
• A neighborhood guide (including the best cafes with wifi!)
• …and of course free internet access to write about you

Create a separate page to promote this

You may want to create a separate page on your website for visiting photographers and bloggers. Having links and suggestions all in one place provides easy access to all the information above.

There are no rules

You need to use your intuition on what is appropriate for your hotel and each situation. Hopefully this guide will give you some ideas, but in the end you need to…

Go out there and experiment!

Photo credits: Youssry, jenny downing

I’m trying a little experiment on Twitter.

For the next week or so, I’ll be publishing excerpts from my blog posts as tweets using Tweetlater. The idea? To provide value and complement the myriad of links people (including myself) are dumping into Twitter.

What do you think: do you like this idea? Would you find it useful, or is it just duplicating the content here on the blog?

Photo credit: visualpanic

As much as I like to think of myself as a seasoned blogger, I still get surprised from time to time by which posts become most popular. Some articles I spent 6-8+ hours writing fail, and others I spend 15 minutes on are my biggest hits.

My post last week – Viral video disaster: what NOT to do – was a good example of this.

In case you haven’t read the post yet, it just contained some brief comments on what I saw as a social media campaign gone wrong. I wanted to share the videos with you as an example of something to avoid – but had no idea it would spread virally as it did.

As far as I can tell, the post was re-tweeted (shared) by 48 Twitter users within the first 36 hours, and I also received several hundred new readers from Chinese blogs I wasn’t aware of previously. Among the people sharing the post on Twitter was social media A-lister Chris Brogan, whose updates are read by over 73,000 followers.

Twitter traffic spike

A few thoughts on this experience:

1) Social media has a lot of real potential. There is a lot of hype out there (even I get tired of hearing about it) – but the results can be very real and tangible.  How else could I have spread my message for free to over 100,000 people that quickly?

2) The top social media power users have disproportionately large influence. Normally, it would take a lot more than 48 re-tweets to reach an audience this large. Thanks to Chris and several other marketing stars on Twitter, the traffic I received was very substantial.

3) Negative/controversial content gets attention. I have mixed feelings on this – even wish it wasn’t true – but that is the reality.

4) Viral traffic from Twitter has a very short lifespan – often no more than a few hours. For long-term traffic, you need to gain the attention of bloggers and website editors. Thankfully, many bloggers are active users on Twitter, so this often works out well.

Encouraging people to spread your message virally on Twitter is more of a science than I initially recognized. There are a lot of excellent tutorials and case studies on the web, but here are a few I found especially helpful:

• How I got my blog post retweeted by @problogger, @GuyKawasaki and 250 more (by Marko Saric)
• Make your blog go viral with Twitter ReTweets (by Marko Saric)
• What’s in a Retweet? The Data Behind Viral Messaging on Twitter (by Dan Zarrella)
• Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth (by Jeremiah Owyang)

I would like to post some industry-specific articles and case studies of how hotels have used Twitter to virally spread a message or special offer. Have you experienced a similar results – or know a hotel that has? Let me know in the comments, and make sure you’re subscribed to receive future posts on this topic.

Twitter is one of the fastest-growing social media networks, a microblogging tool that allows its users to make text-based posts in 140 characters or less.  An estimated 5.5 million people now use the service, with website traffic up 573% over the past year according to Compete:

The whole service is based around letting you answer the question, “What are you doing now?”  While this may initially seem like a waste of time with little relevance to a hotel marketer, many organizations have found it useful as a one-to-many broadcasting tool.

Here are some ideas for using Twitter in the hospitality industry:

• First, use Twitter Search to see what people are saying about you, your competitors, your area, and your industry
• Like most of social media, Twitter isn’t just about pushing what you have to sell.  Try to be genuinely hepful to your followers. (JetBlue shares travel tips)
• Share ideas and links to interesting stuff you find.
• Ask your followers for advice on new ideas.  (Get way to get concise, helpful feedback.)
• Break news on Twitter, especially if it affects your web presence
• Use it as a tool to improve your customer service (like Frank at Comcast)
• View Twitter as a way to build customer relationships, and show the human side of your company

So go sign up for an account today, and be sure to follow us on Twitter for all the latest hotel marketing tips.

As we’ve covered in the past few weeks, the vast majority of internet users now expect companies to have a presence in social media.  There are a number of popular social networks in the travel industry, and since most travelers use the internet for trip planning, it’s important that you have a good reputation there.

How can you encourage positive reviews of your hotel in social media websites?

1. At check in, encourage your visitors to register at Yelp.com or TripAdvisor if they haven’t already, so they can discover some of the best local attractions.  Ask them to review your hotel once they’ve signed up.
2. Ask guests to review your hotel online at the end of all guest satisfaction surveys you distribute.
3. When you receive a positive survey response, thank the guest by email, and send a link to tripadvisor.com with a request to rate your hotel there.
4. When guests compliment you on your facility, thank them and say you would really appreciate if they would review you online.
5. Customize a special landing page on your hotel network, so the first web page guests see when they connect to the internet contains links to review sites.  Here’s a very basic sample page:

It all comes down to understanding the importance social media reviews play in a potential guest’s decision making process. So whether you ask a guest to review your hotel, or encourage travel bloggers to write about you, your goal is to take advantage of every opportunity to expand your web presence and improve your online reputation.